Right now we get only few TCs a day to >10 votes, so I can manage. I'll let you know when that gets out of control

Are you guys accepting suggestions on how to improve the whole voting process? I hate to sound so cynical, I think time capsules are a delightful idea, but I think the fact that you're only getting a few every day in spite of how many have been submitted so far indicates that something, somewhere, isn't working as it should.

I really dont like the "Out of Character" Stuff thats now in this Game. Just found 5 Ion Power Cells in a Time Capsule. Then a Doll from some Youtuber in a Lifepod and a Natural Selection 2 Poster. This totally kills the immersion for me. Sure, i can ignore this, but its in the Game and it is annoying for me. I will block Subnautica with my Firewall to stop the Time Capsules from spawning, i hope this works. Sorry for the litte rant.

Ace - I've made a reddit post on this topic. I think that there are some unforeseen consequences. My post is below. I can't yet post a link but I'll update it when I can.

/r/subnautica/comments/7tvyem/someone_needs_to_say_it_timecapsules_are_a_hot/
Hello everyone! Before we get going, I want to say that I absolutely love Subnautica and have for almost three years now with 200 hours.

I just finished my 5th play through (a HC run started after 1.0) and loved every second of it. So far, I have put two time-capsules with some thought behind them (not game breaking, good message, etc) but when I tried to go find them, I learned what a mess the time-capsule system is.

Trying to find your own, vote on good, get rid of the bad... It's a very problematic system at the moment.

A couple things I'd love to see:

Automatic opt-out of time capsules in hardcore, optional opt-out in survival. The capsules, while giving an old player like me a bit of a laugh for getting 6 bags of chips, also breaks progression with its 3 ion powered tools and MK3 upgrades for all the vehicles. Hardcore is especially made to be a challenge, so I'd love a way out of that.

Please sacrifice a kitten to Gendarme and restructure the voting site with a bit more thought to the sheer massive volume of data coming into the system.

Moderate and reduce the items that can be attached to a TC. 2x2 should be enough. No Ion anything, no tools with ion power, no vehicle upgrades. I've seen players getting 18 Ion Power Cells before they even get a damn cyclops.

Limit the amount of TC's added to a players game (I found 3 or so in my last play through and I wasn't even looking for them. I went straight from shallows to lifepod signals for most of them).

Some level of moderation or filtering needs to be done to the submissions. Its a disaster in there. Some are thoughtful with kind items, others are one word with OP gear, others are blank and should be deleted automatically.

I know everyone at UWE is celebrating and hopefully taking a well deserved vacation. I honestly think this game would have done as well at $35, its just such a great and beautiful game. When you guys get back from your break, please take a look at this.

1. Automatic opt-out of time capsules in hardcore, optional opt-out in survival. The capsules, while giving an old player like me a bit of a laugh for getting 6 bags of chips, also breaks progression with its 3 ion powered tools and MK3 upgrades for all the vehicles. Hardcore is especially made to be a challenge, so I'd love a way out of that.

2. Please sacrifice a kitten to Gendarme and restructure the voting site with a bit more thought to the sheer massive volume of data coming into the system.

3. Moderate and reduce the items that can be attached to a TC. 2x2 should be enough. No Ion anything, no tools with ion power, no vehicle upgrades. I've seen players getting 18 Ion Power Cells before they even get a damn cyclops.

4. Limit the amount of TC's added to a players game (I found 3 or so in my last play through and I wasn't even looking for them. I went straight from shallows to lifepod signals for most of them).

5. Some level of moderation or filtering needs to be done to the submissions. Its a disaster in there. Some are thoughtful with kind items, others are one word with OP gear, others are blank and should be deleted automatically."

5. Some level of moderation or filtering needs to be done to the submissions. Its a disaster in there. Some are thoughtful with kind items, others are one word with OP gear, others are blank and should be deleted automatically."

A recap on what the Dev has already stated. The voting system is a preliminary screen for time-capsules. Only Capsules that have 10+ positive votes make it to a Dev's desk.
Yes, its near impossible for us as players to find good capsules, UWE has noted that and is working on a script to weed out very poor submissions. The only fact of the matter that remains is that a Search system will be the only way to efficiently screen time-Capsules on our End User side. The obvious barrier to UWE creating this is the shear amount of work they already have working on the Actual Game.

1. Automatic opt-out of time capsules in hardcore, optional opt-out in survival. The capsules, while giving an old player like me a bit of a laugh for getting 6 bags of chips, also breaks progression with its 3 ion powered tools and MK3 upgrades for all the vehicles. Hardcore is especially made to be a challenge, so I'd love a way out of that.

Agreed, I also think the Capsules need to be removed from the Rocket and placed somewhere else in the game so that we can create one if we want, but also will not be right in front of every console-using-poop-flinging-imbecile on this planet that finished a game in 5 minutes with No cost & forcerocketready. No offense if you are a console-using-poop-flinging-imbecile, I understand that is a life style choice.

Just finished the Game (and it was great btw) and learned that you can not leave without setting up a Time Capsule. You dont have to Send it though, but you have to type some things in it. I think this is a bad implementation for this and results in a lot of bad Capsules. It would be nice when you can play the first Game without Time Capsules and then activate them in NewGame+ or something. I also like some of the Ideas posted above to restrict them.

Just spent half an hour voting and the quality of those capsules is... depressing, to be honest. Spoilers, swear words, real-life self-advertising, immersion breaking babble... and the worst thing is that those get some upvotes too.

Out of the batch that loaded up for me, which was a total of 100 I think, I only upvoted 5 or so. I don't know, it seems people simply have no idea what these capsules are for or what to do with them. I haven't gotten to creating mine yet, so I do not know how the process goes, but perhaps some guidelines as to what is okay to put in there are necessary (as in: not the end-game stuff and only non-spoilery pictures) and what to write (again, no spoilers and keep it in-character: write as the survivor, not lonely Jimmy from the basement seeking friends through his email)...

I'm sorry, I'm just sad, I guess.

You haven't seen anything at all.
Here's the second one I got. Word for word.

"Looking for a hot date in the vicinity of PLANET_4546B?

I am a single woman who likes to SWIMMING and to {$hobby2}!
If you want to meet up, just send me a message at[email protected]HWV. I look forward to meeting you! "

I mean, don't get me wrong. It was hilarious.
It's also a little immersion breaking. I'm just imagining this as a random broadcast, because there are quite a few extremely capitalist lines in the game....
That "everything you collect is the property of ALTERRA and must be repaid in full... you currently owe 3 million credits" in particular.
So in that context, it fits right in.

Just finished the Game (and it was great btw) and learned that you can not leave without setting up a Time Capsule. You dont have to Send it though, but you have to type some things in it. I think this is a bad implementation for this and results in a lot of bad Capsules. It would be nice when you can play the first Game without Time Capsules and then activate them in NewGame+ or something. I also like some of the Ideas posted above to restrict them.

Not true. I just tested it in my game - I left everything blank - no items, no text, no title, no image - the screen said "not valid", and I was able to leave without problems. However, the fact that this can be confusing and not obvious to some players proves that it needs to be more clearly stated there that you don't HAVE to create a capsule to finish the game.

You haven't seen anything at all.
Here's the second one I got. Word for word.

"Looking for a hot date in the vicinity of PLANET_4546B?

I am a single woman who likes to SWIMMING and to {$hobby2}!
If you want to meet up, just send me a message at[email protected] I look forward to meeting you! "

I mean, don't get me wrong. It was hilarious.
It's also a little immersion breaking. I'm just imagining this as a random broadcast, because there are quite a few extremely capitalist lines in the game....
That "everything you collect is the property of ALTERRA and must be repaid in full... you currently owe 3 million credits" in particular.
So in that context, it fits right in.

And this actually got approved? Geez... I'd be absolutely pissed if I found such garbage in my game. If capsules like that are okay for UWE then I rest my case and just ask for a possibility to completely turn capsules off when starting a new game.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It was hilarious.
It's also a little immersion breaking. I'm just imagining this as a random broadcast, because there are quite a few extremely capitalist lines in the game....
That "everything you collect is the property of ALTERRA and must be repaid in full... you currently owe 3 million credits" in particular.
So in that context, it fits right in.

That is a great point, and hilarious, it's technically canon it just doesn't fit into the idea of the Time Capsule.

Is there a way to easily find your own timecapsule on the voting page? I wanted to show it to a friend and maybe get them to vote for it if they found it interesting... Its hard to find the good ones without being able to filter out the spam/ridiculous ones.

Hi, I’ve been around early enough in subnautica that I have one of the limited run edition hull plates. I have never felt the need to leave a comment because I have been happy with progression of the immersive elements. Until today that is.

Some of these capsules that have been approved are immersion killing. For me, that is not in the sense of items left, which can be deleted but in the form of pictures and/or messages that have been left. Which when read or placed into the log we are effectively stuck with.

Here is an extract of some succinct posts I made in the steam forum:

“I found a timecapsule and it was pretty cool but I have no idea what it says (which in itself is ok but with a game that has a universal translator it seems quite ironic from a continuity standpoint) and right after the immersive experience (generally the capsule was exciting to find), I looked in the PDA I also have a picture of somebodys' real life face wearing giant headphones and a cap, I have nothing bad to say about them (in fact in many ways it's complimentary because what they left was not overpowered but extremely helpful) as I have no idea who they are, but gameplay wise;

I don't really feel like the in-game PDA is the best place to put that facial portrait of someone who is probably here, now, on planet earth (I play this game to escape the realities of the real world, I don't really want to be reminded of them while i'm here), they don't really look like they just launched from a futuristic rocket on an world populated with mostly water any way.

it's a bit immersion killing to say the least so I was wondering, how can I delete the message and remove it from my PDA?

If there isn't a way there really needs to be one.

This guys face should have nothing to do with my game state and it kills the feeling of being transported away, sorry.

Messages on their own would be nice but this feature of his features, seems to be over-engineerd.

LOL I just translated it and it says send me a screenshot if you find my capsule, what's that got to do with subnautica? This must be a youtuber plugging his channel.... why.
Last edited by Brechnor; 29 Jan @ 5:42pm”

Second extract follows;

“Brechnor has Subnautica 15 hours ago
Originally posted by Emperor Tarek:
man its the best part of finishing the game to leave something behind

(My response)

I agree with this statement at face value, but it should not be allowed to be used as a subtle advertising platform for video makers on top of the developers years of hard work and the incredibly immersive experience they strived to accomplish.

That's the big issue here for me. I like watching videos and hearing reactions for this game, but ones I chose and not ones that I'm told to watch subtly, or otherwise.

Silly pictures of made up fish, I can see as having a point, perhaps some survivors went mad. Pictures and screenshots I can understand, perhaps some people want to share their excitement, but not the other. For me.

But that's the point, the choice should be there to delete undersirable capsule log entries. So those who love you tubers can collect them like cards and those who don't, can carry on as normal and delete then forget but still be thankful for the items contained within.
Last edited by Brechnor; 15 hours ago”

All I am asking for, is at least a way to remove capsule message logs from the game if we don’t like any of them, which can sometimes include self promotional advertisement from within the game.

I don’t personally have a problem with anything else, fan serve to jake septic or who ever he is is fine, if I ever decide I don’t like that I can just bin it or throw it to the bottom of the ocean, I can’t do such a thing with these messages.

I would however, genuinely love to find these capsules and continue to unpack the goodies within, then further keep messages that I do like.

I don’t wish to not have this feature, just some in game control over how it is delivered to me once it has passed the muster of the approval process.

As it currently stands, having to “actively” ignore them by metagaming and saving before opening, then reloading and further placing a beacon to say (DO NOT OPEN, INNAPROPRIATE CONTENT) is not that “fun”, in my subjective experience.

Bonus if any potential said support is retroactive too.

Also bear in mind, suggestive dating messages that the above poster found could create some interesting conversations between children and their parents. I have seen game companies go bust over user generated content like this before becuase they have skirted too close to laws of particular countries. The ability to delete these messages would not only help immersion for people like me but cover yourselves legally in the event of a much more suggestive dating message that could accidentally get past the approval process.

There is a way to at least remove capsule pictures form your databank: you can find them in your save's directory, there's a separate folder for them there. That's how I got rid of that DJ guy's photo from my game, I somehow found that capsule twice in a single playthrough. Sadly, we seem to be stuck with the idiotic messages.

Good observation with all the suggestive themes, too, especially considering the game's rating, which - let's not forget - was the reason blood had to be removed from the game entirely.

Generally, the main criteria for approving or rejecting capsules should be immersion and - I'm not afraid to use the word - quality. And I don't care if people tell me to chill out, stop being a snob and just move on. I should not have to avoid content and if moderating it in a satisfactory way is not possible, then I should at least have the ability to block it from my game.

Why am I harping on this so much? Because Subnautica's power is in the atmosphere it creates. All elements of the game cooperate to achieve the ultimate goal that is making you feel like you are there, in that deep vast ocean, trying to survive - everything from the way lighting works, from sound and biome design, to music. And then you find a capsule with a terrible drawing and an even more terrible joke about the game dragging on. Or a picture of an anime girl and a full inventory of lubricant. For the lonely nights. And poof, just like that, your immersion is gone, you are dragged out of this wonderful underwater world and tossed right into the reality and level of YouTube comments...

Or a picture of an anime girl and a full inventory of lubricant. For the lonely nights. And poof, just like that, your immersion is gone, you are dragged out of this wonderful underwater world and tossed right into the reality and level of YouTube comments...

I snipped your post a little to save space.

Thank you, it’s nice to know that the pictures can at least be forcibly removed but it seems like a clumsy solution to what’s currently being offered. I’m only being critical (without being aggressively so) becuase I am very passionate about this game and want it to be the best it can, including the community when it can but not crossing some potentially dangerous lines, legally, or on the basis of immersion (in game RL sniping advertisements are not great to see), or otherwise.

I go through great efforts to make sure my desktop in particular doesn’t get pictures of anime girls and lubricant so I would be frustrated if that one made its way into my game. (It’s my gaming desktop, I don’t like using it for suggestive imagery, if you know what I’m saying). By the inverse as those pictures are downloaded to our hard drives directly, that only reinforces the need to be even more careful with the approval process and a deletion option for said content when things do pass and become accepted into the wider community servers.

Sooo @Calarand77 you seem to be pretty darn strict about what you'd approve in a capsule. Got any, I dunno, examples, maybe? Because it seems to me your level of good enough would be impossible to achieve.

Sooo @Calarand77 you seem to be pretty darn strict about what you'd approve in a capsule. Got any, I dunno, examples, maybe? Because it seems to me your level of good enough would be impossible to achieve.

Boy, do I have some epic examples for you! Admittedly, one is shamelessly mine, but hey, it would be wrong to not set an example myself if I am "so darn demanding" of others, right? Here:

What we agree on:
1) Current Voting system is not working.
2) Search parameters would be handy.
3) The ability to define what theme you are making your capsule. (Canon or Comments)
4) The ability to turn capsules in game on/off.
4) The ability to turn specific themes of capsules on/off.
5) Capsule needs to be moved from rocket to somewhere else for both canon purposes and to remove the "low hanging fruit" aspect that is currently drawing so many terrible submissions.

Perhaps a new item could be nice. Lost PDA made by player? For handy storytelling. I do still like the idea of leaving some items though.

Jesus that voting page is atrocious. Who designed that? They need to be taken out back and given what for. The entries should be in the opposite order. Who thought it was a good idea to put new entries at the bottom of the list? I spent a good 10 minutes spamming the "Load More" button trying to find my own capsule from a couple days ago because I wanted to see if it had any votes but never got out of the '1 Week Ago' entries. And why can't we see what's actually in the capsules? We're supposed to judge a capsule based on nothing more than a screenshot and a little bit of text? A capsule could have 100 upvotes because it has a cool screenshot but there be nothing in it except for titanium, or even nothing at all. Also, at least 70% of the list is just garbage entries with no screenshot, no text, or neither. Those should be immediately filtered out and disqualified. We also need a way to filter entries by language. I'm an ignorant american and only speak english. Entries in any other language may as well be blank to me because I haven't a clue what they say. I'm also betting that entries that get sent on for approval aren't even removed from the list. I saw one entry in the '1 week ago' section that had over 40 upvotes. Surely that one has been reviewed but it's still on the list.

... I'm realizing looking at that voting page has made me irrationally angry. It's still a horrible page though.

Yeah the voting page definitely needs an overhaul with the above suggestions from posts in this thread, as well as making time capsule online submissions non-compulsory.

Also allow the user to show more entries on the list at once, that way we can quickly scroll through and instantly spot ones that are worth voting for.

Personally I would suggest only allowing screenshots taken from within the game itself, like if you take a screenshot in-game it should be flagged differently within the PDA (in code) - then only allow people to attach those. Yes it will reduce creativity opportunities but imagine the amount of immersion breaking/offensive images you would instantly cut out for submission.

Although attaching screenshots is a nice idea, I'd argue that text-only would be more sensible, immediately lowering the amount of spoilers and crappy images players would be subjected to.

When submitting time capsules there should be a language checkbox, then voters can filter by language too - and native speakers can concentrate on curating their own languages without having to trawl through all the English submissions.

As for time capsules being OP - this is definitely an issue - but in fairness its up to the player to decide whether to use that loot. How about including an option on starting a new game that removes the items within time capsules, or removes time capsules completely. Or an option which replaces time capsule items with just food and water, or maybe a computer chip, or similar.

It's worth noting I have played the game for over 5 days playtime and still not found one, so they aren't that easy to find (a good thing).

My personal thoughts on this might be to have the voting queue work similarly to the steam voting queue on Greenlight or game's like Warframe's player-made content.

Volunteering players are presented with the capsule's contents/image/text, and are asked if they like it or not. After a quick yes/no, they are then shown another capsule awaiting review at random. The capsules don't have to be pulled up in any special sequence, they're just pulled at random. Then once they hit a certain threshold of up or down votes, they're either discarded or referred to final approval/rejection.

Since each capsule only gets a small and finite number of voters before it is removed from the queue, this'd allow a relatively small number of voters to burn through a fairly substantial backlog of capsules fairly quickly.

In the current system, capsules near the top may be *seen* by dozens or even hundreds of people, but most of who have no impetus to actually cast a vote on it. With my suggestion, players are strongly encouraged to cast a vote for the next capsule to appear, and thus the capsules will hit their discard/approval goal relatively quickly and leave the queue.

Personally I would suggest only allowing screenshots taken from within the game itself, like if you take a screenshot in-game it should be flagged differently within the PDA (in code) - then only allow people to attach those. Yes it will reduce creativity opportunities but imagine the amount of immersion breaking/offensive images you would instantly cut out for submission.

Asides from the technical difficulties (The images are JPG format, so the game would need to record the checksum as it's the only reasonable way to confirm it's the same, unaltered file). From my experience of looking at the time-capsule submissions, edited images are the least immersion breaking thing I've seen. I've seen a handful of edited images on the list, only one I'd say was incongruous, and some have been really well chosen - ranging from an advertising flyer for the contained stasis rifle, to a hand-drawn map from another now-deceased survivor.

It's more often what people post in the text that makes them unsuitable. Ranging from notes of thanks to the devs, to first-person talk of "their escape" from the 4546B. One of the first approved time capsules I found was signed by someone else who survived the aurora, escaped the planet and asked me to look after his cuddlefish, within the first 3 days of the crash... which as very out of sync with the narrative.

By this measure, getting rid of the text box would be more of a net improvement to quality control, than filtering edited images (I'm not seriously suggesting removing the text field...).

Agree with everything said against current preliminary user-voting queue not working. Either "Steam discovery"-style queue or showing capsules at random to vote yes/no and never coming back to them would work.

Do you think putting rare resources into time-capsule and not explaining their real value is acceptable?